Natural England - CROW Open Access website & maps - Terms of use
CROW Open Access website & maps - Terms of use
On reading these terms of use, controlled by Natural England you are agreeing to how they govern your use of the site.
The maps on the Site show the land that is likely to be available for public access on foot under the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000.
Although these maps and restriction information provide the most up-to-date details about where you can go on access land and where restrictions exist, they should be used in conjunction with an Ordnance Survey Explorer Map.
You can also order Ordnance Survey Explorer maps by telephoning 0845 200 2712 (## 44 1233 211108 outside UK). Calls are charged at local rate in the UK.
Please read the following terms and conditions carefully. They govern your use of the maps and the associated information on the Site. By accessing the Site, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.
Licence to use the Content
1. All maps and other materials on the Site (the Content) are owned by Natural England or its licensors. You may:
a. download and display any part of the Content on a computer screen for your personal use
b. print any part of the Content on paper for your personal use
c. if you hold a legal interest in CROW access land, photocopy individual pages of Content to enable you to exercise any of your powers under the CROW Act.
2. You may not do anything else with Content. Specifically, you must not:
a. re-distribute, modify or commercially exploit it; or
b. remove the copyright or trade mark notice from any copies of it.
Accuracy, Completeness and Currency of the Content
3. While Natural England has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the Content is accurate, complete and up to date, it cannot guarantee or give any warranty as to the accuracy, currency or completeness of the Content which you access.
Natural England is not responsible for the services provided by third parties such as Internet Service Providers and telecoms networks that may affect the download time of the Content. All Content is provided 'as is', excluding any warranties of any kind, either express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law, including (but not limited to) the exclusion of warranties of title, satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement of proprietary or third party rights.
Natural England do not warrant that the Site or any of the Content accessed through it are compatible with your computer equipment or that the Site, its server or any of the Content are free of errors, viruses, worms, Trojan horses or cancelbots, and Natural England is not liable for any damage you may suffer as a result of such destructive features.
4. Your attention is drawn to the possible limitations on the accuracy, completeness and currency of the maps set out at Appendices A and B (below) to these terms and conditions.
5. Your access to the Site is subject to the express terms and conditions set out here, but is otherwise provided, to the fullest extent permitted by law, without any conditions, warranties, representation or other terms of any kind, whether express or implied.
6. Natural England does not accept any responsibility in respect of your access to, use of or inability to use the Site or the Content. Natural England shall not be liable to you for any losses, costs, claims, demands, expenses or damages (whether direct or indirect and including loss of profits), howsoever caused, resulting from your access to, use of or inability to use the Site or the Content.
Appendix A
Possible limitations on accuracy, completeness and currency of the maps
a. Natural England used its best endeavours to compile, on the basis of the information available to it at the time, accurate and complete maps of open country and registered common land in accordance with its duty under section 4 of the CROW Act. We took full account of representations made to us about the maps at draft stage, and our provisional map reflected our conclusions as to whether particular areas of land should be added or removed. Where subsequent appeals led to further land being removed from the map, the map was modified accordingly at conclusive map stage. Any changes in the nature of the land after the provisional map is issued (or where an appeal was made, after the determination of the appeal) cannot be reflected on the map until Natural England formally reviews it. Natural England is required by section 10 of the Act to undertake such a review at least every ten years.
b. We have no power to correct on our maps any known or alleged errors on the commons register maps.
c. In Mapping Area 1 (covering the South-East of England), the conclusive map does not show East Sussex Registered Common Land at all, because at the time of compilation the registers had been completely destroyed by fire. Now that the East Sussex common land registers have been reconstituted under a local act, we are considering with Defra how best to ensure that access rights are secured and recognised as soon as possible over registered common land in East Sussex.
d. Land that is both on our statutory maps of open country and registered common land, and subject to existing access rights of the type listed by CROW section 15, is included within the yellow access land wash, even though the existing rights while they remain in force prevent the new ones from applying. This is on the basis that all of the section 15 land we include within the yellow wash will offer open access at least on foot.
e. Where the maps reflect data received by Natural England from third parties such as the Ministry of Defence, we have acted in good faith on this data.
f. The maps exclude from the yellow access land wash all land known to be under military byelaws or used for purposes of a racecourse or aerodrome. It is impracticable to exclude in this way the other categories of excepted land listed at CROW Schedule 1.
Appendix B
CROW Section 4 Conclusive Map of Registered Common land and Open Country for England
Accuracy and Completeness of the Content
We would like to draw your attention to the background information about the maps displayed on this site.
Whilst Natural England has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that content placed on the site is accurate, complete and up to date, it does not make any warranty that the site or content is accurate, complete or up to date.
Shown in yellow, Open Country (OC) consists of all land that - at the date of issue of the map - appeared to Natural England to consist wholly or predominantly of mountain, moor, heath and down and is not registered common land. It includes any modifications determined by the Secretary of State as a result of appeals. Shown in green, Registered Common Land (RCL) consists of digitised copies of land registered as common land under the Commons Registration Act 1965 (land registered as a village green under the 1965 Act is not included). It includes any modifications determined by the Secretary of State as a result of appeals.
In order to interpret the map the OC and RCL information is displayed against a greyscale copy of the 1:25000 Ordnance Survey (OS) raster map The conclusive map will be reviewed within 10 years of the date of issue.
Note: as the OC and RCL data was captured at various scales using specialised mapping tools and is displayed on this website against a different OS product, distortions may occasionally occur. For example in some cases the edges of open country or registered common land will appear to ‘spill’ over boundary lines such as walls or fences. The zoom function on the website maps has been set to minimise distortion.
We understand that the OS will be updating their raster maps to more closely reflect their surveying maps for the whole of Britain over the next ten years.
Your attention is drawn to the fact that the conclusive map shows only the location of OC and RCL. It is strongly recommended that you do not rely on it as a walking guide. This is because there is no right of access to land shown as OC or RCL where:
Such land is excepted land as described in Schedule 1 of the CROW Act.
There are restrictions on the right of access.
In Mapping Area 1 (covering the South-East of England), the conclusive map does not show East Sussex Registered Common Land at all, because at the time of compilation the registers had been completely destroyed by fire. Now that the East Sussex common land registers have been reconstituted under a local act, we are considering with Defra how best to ensure that access rights are secured and recognised as soon as possible over registered common land in East Sussex.
Disclaimer
Nothing in this disclaimer shall exclude or limit Natural England’s liability for:
a. death or personal injury resulting from Natural England’s negligence;
b. fraud;
c. any matter in respect of which Natural England is not permitted by law to exclude or limit its liability to you.
Subject to the preceding points, your access to the site and content is provided without any conditions, warranties, representation or other terms of any kind, whether express or implied by statute, common law or otherwise. Natural England does not accept any responsibility in respect of your access to, or use or inability to use the site or content. Natural England shall not be liable to you for any losses, costs, claims, demands, expenses or damages (whether direct or indirect and including loss of profits), howsoever caused, resulting from your access to, or use of or inability to use the site or the content.